Introduction

With everything I have been delivered from SteelSeries since our meeting up in Las Vegas for CES 2012, I was one mouse shy of seeing the entire lineup in some form or another. The one mouse from them that I always get asked about is the Sensei and that just happened to be the one mouse I had not seen. Well, that time is over, sort of. As the title alluded to, I am in fact using the Sensei, but in a new form. By no means do I mean the quality has changed nor has the ambidextrous nature of the mouse been changed, it's all about the features or lack thereof and a really attractive price point that is spawning the newest version of the Sensei laser gaming mouse.

For starters, aesthetically the Sensei has gone from a metal exterior to plastic in either a glossy or rubberized finish for the new version. Both keep the same laser sensor, Omron switches, eight buttons, software support and a braided cord. Where things start to differ internally is that this newest sample has only white LED backlighting options and the original offered 16.8 million choices. The 32-bit ARM processor is replaced with a 16-bit MCU. The CPI is relatively the same as well, but the idea here was to deliver gamers everything good about SteelSeries mice, without all of the professional options for those who will be taking mice to various pre-set PCs to game on. Most of us who game, do so at home or take our rigs to a LAN event, so the need to store a ton of profiles and have an expensive mouse that offers things we don't need isn't something we have to settle for anymore, there are now better solutions on the market.

Now this isn't a knock-down model of the Sensei by any means. It still uses a great laser sensor and has the feel of the original with the same amount of programmable buttons. This time with the release of the Sensei [RAW] you get the down and dirty model of the mouse that is geared more for the masses and not solely driven towards professional gamers. I have been a fan of the light and easy to use mice from SteelSeries, but I will agree that most of what was included in the SteelSeries Engine software was a bit over the top for me. If anything I would go and set things once, maybe change the color, but besides that, once it was set, I pretty much left all of the options and profiles at default. With the Sensei [RAW] in its rubberized coating, I now have the simpler mouse I always wanted from SteelSeries. That is one that is plug-and-play, easy to use and navigate the software and is just a pleasure to use.

I think SteelSeries hit the nail on the head with the Sensei [RAW] and if you continue reading, I think you will be as intrigued as I am about this new laser gaming mouse.